The Explorer Guild Chapter 2, as Told by Wampastompa

Chapter 2

"What are you going to do with all these clones, Jules?" asked his wife Honorine de Viane Morel.

"Great question... I wasn't entirely confident the machine would work. Now we seem to have a conundrum on our hands."

"Our hands?!"

"Okay. My hands. I'll figure out what to do with these clones. Just give me some time to think..."

At that precise moment, a clamorous clanking of dishes and silverware arose from the kitchen.

Jules got up from his multicolor, worn-out reading chair and scrambled into the other room, afraid to see what was the matter.

"Hi, Jules. Sorry about the dishes" The blue-skinned Jules clone stood in the pile of shattered porcelain dishware, oblivious to the harmful nature of sharp objects. "Also, my feet hurt," he opined, as blood spiderwebbed from his spindly toes across the floorboards.

"Goddamit, Blue Jules. You're such a mess... You're all messes, to be quite frank."

Blue Jules piped up in defense of all Juleses: "We were only just born, Jules! Well, not born, per se. I suppose 'created' is closer to the truth. We're still learning how to not be a constant nuisance."

"Yes. Of course. Of course." Jules swept the broken dishes up and wiped the floor. Then he cleaned and dressed Blue Jules's porcelain wounds.

"Thanks, Jules," said Blue Jules, wiggling his newly-bandaged toes.

Jules knew he would have to find a way to keep all the clones occupied.

Left to their own devices, they'd muck up everything, including his relationship with his wife. Speaking of his wife, Jules thought she might have some insight into the situation.

He shouted down the hallway to Morel, who remained in the reading room to avoid having to confront the cohort of clumsy Jules imposters: "Do you have any idea how I can keep all of these different Jules characters occupied?"

"Nope," chirped Morel in as short and lackluster a manner as she could muster. She wanted nothing to do with Jules and his many Juleses. She made that clear.

"Hey, Blue Jules. How do your feet feel now?"

"They're good now. Thank you, Jules. Well, I mean, they hurt a bit. But that's to be expected. Otherwise, they're good. As good as one would expect after stepping in porcelain shards."

The original Jules cleared his throat.

"It's time to put you all to work. You're all going to be my in-house social media team. I'm just a single Jules. I can only post on social media a few times a day. It also takes me a while to write blog posts. Creating illustrations takes up even more of my time."

"But, with all of you on my team, we can pump out content nonstop. 24/7 content. We can finally keep up with the man."

"We're our own publishing house. Our own art collective. Our own developer team. Our own animation studio even!"

Jules doled out roles to every other Jules (and himself too)

"WE'RE UNSTOPPABLE, FELLOW JULESES!"

Jules hadn't felt this heated and full of fiery inspiration in ages.

But good things don't last in this day and age. From somewhere in the far corner of the room, a Jules wearing an old-school diving helmet rained on Jules's parade: "Why do you get to choose our roles? Why don't we all collectively divvy up the various roles required to run this creative powerhouse?"

Three years passed...

The Jules squad had finally solidified everyone's roles within the collective.

Unfortunately, artificial intelligence progressed rapidly during their lengthy time of deliberation and rendered many of their assigned duties useless.

"We need to start the whole process over," said Diver Jules.

Jules sighed. He wasn't one to hate, but he strongly disliked Diver Jules. "Ok. Fine. Whatever. Let's start again. You all are insufferable. I can't stand to live in this mirrorless funhouse full of mirror images of myself. But there's simply nothing I can do other than try to comply with you all. I've created this hell, and I must live in it."

"Who knew that creating could be so eternally painful? That a moment's creations could haunt a creator for their entire life? Ugh."

Jules left the clones alone to mumble about and figure out their new roles.

He walked off towards his bedroom and mumbled incomprehensibly to himself before settling down into his raggedy old reading chair.

At this point, he didn't even care if the group gave him a boring job like converting images and videos to different formats. He just wanted to sleep.

Plus they'd probably just argue back and forth for another several years anyway. For the last three years, Jules tried hard to keep the discussion peaceful and

But his effort landed him nowhere. They were all back at square one.

Jules just needed a break from all this fuss.

Sometimes sleeping is the only solution.

Especially when surrounded by innumerable copies of yourself. That's a hell Jules wouldn't wish on his worst enemies.

While discussion took place in the other room, muted by his house's walls, Jules began to doze off...